David Recommends

Recommended by David
‘A century ago, Seven Dials, just a few minutes walk from the shop, was a shabby, cosmopolitan working-class district, not quite Bloomsbury, not quite Covent Garden. It was also, as Matt Houlbrook shows in his powerful study, a microcosm for the tensions and conflicts that defined British society then, and continue to define it now.’

Recommended by David:
‘An awe-inspiring survey of how non-human animals see, hear, smell and feel. The world of nature is far more bewildering and wonderful that you ever could have imagined.’

Recommended by David
‘One of the great non-fiction books to come out of the Troubles – powerful, courageous and terrifying.’

Recommended by David
‘If you thought moths were dull, think again! James Lowen’s pen portraits reveal their fascinating beauty better than any photograph or painting could.’

Recommended by David
‘The strange and wonderful landscapes of northern England are stripped of their beauty and imbued with new grandeur in M. John Harrison’s strange and wonderful study of obsession.’

Recommended by David
‘The first in a series of as yet indeterminate length introduces John Cromer, physically disabled and intellectually athletic, and one of the great characters in contemporary comic fiction.’

Recommended by David
‘In Nabokov’s “most perfect novel”, the action takes place between a poem and its commentary. An unforgettable masterpiece.’

Recommended by David
‘With very little sailing experience, Marsden resolves to navigate from his Cornish home to a remote archipelago in north west Scotland, along Ireland’s rugged west coast. Unforgettable characters, mesmerising prose – destines to become a classic of travel literature.’

Recommended by David

‘Saturday evening, 9 March 1566. A queen, 6 months pregnant, is hosting a supper party, thinking herself secure behind the castle walls. Told in an urgent, breathless present tense, Rizzio is a compelling recreation of a pivotal moment in Scottish history by Scotland’s Queen of Crime. Simply stunning.’

Recommended by David
‘On the face of it, it’s a book about hoverflies. In fact, it’s a digressive masterpiece about love, death and nature by one of Europe’s finest writers.’

Recommended by David
‘What do heroes do when the war is over? Some, as is the case with Harold Challoner, turn into villains. A stunning tale, set in WW2 Italy and 1960s Soho.’

Recommended by David
‘It’s one of the best books I know about art, one of the best books I know about Spain, one of the best books I know about ageing, deafness, love and death. All in all, one of the best books I know.’

Recommended by David:
‘If it wasn’t for fungi, life on Earth would simply be impossible. Merlin Sheldrake’s spell-binding account of mushrooms in all their baffling beauty and diversity details what we know about them (quite a lot) as well as what we don’t (an awful lot more), and is beautifully illustrated by the author’s own artwork, drawn in ink he made from, predictably, fungus.’

Recommended by David
‘Tabucchi’s tragic novel, set in Portugal during the Salazar dictatorship raises, in deceptively simple prose, profound questions around the subjects of resistance, heroism, and the peculiar nature of courage.’

Recommended by David
‘I read this poetic, funny, sensual and ebullient celebration of springtime around the world while largely confined to a smallish house in North London. It was almost good enough to make up for not being able to get out and enjoy the real thing.’

Recommended by David
‘This isn’t the book Douglas Rogers was intending to write when he returned to Zimbabwe, the country of his birth, to prepare for a road trip to Mozambique. But it’s the one you'll be glad he did: a nail-biting and often hilarious account of the madcap schemes and unlikely alliances that brought down Mugabe.’

Recommended by David
‘Two teenage boys fall in love in an America ravaged by the undead. Zombie apocalypse meets A Boy’s Own Story? As a YA novel? It really shouldn't work, but it does, and does so magnificently.’

Recommended by David
‘Based on a Radio 4 documentary series, Incarnations recounts the history of India in 50 capsule biographies of major figures, from Buddha in the fifth century BCE to the present day, the majority of them virtually unknown in the West. A perfect introduction to the history of the subcontinent.’

Recommended by David
‘The fishermen’s tales that make up Gavin Knight’s account of life in West Cornwall are a million miles from the cosy world of second homes and holiday cottages, while taking place cheek by jowl with it. As gripping as it is alarming.’

Recommended by David
‘Forget Maigret – it's for the romans durs that Simenon deserves to be remembered, and this malevolent masterpiece is among the best of them.’

Recommended by David
‘Count Rostov is placed under house arrest by a Bolshevik tribunal and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the Hotel Metropol. This is big history on a small canvas – heart-warming, good natured and finally redemptive.’

Recommended by David
‘Nearly 30 years after publication this iconic work of gay fiction has lost not a shred of its strangeness, rigour or hallucinatory brilliance. Neil Bartlett provides a new intro.’

Recommended by David
‘I’ve read the pieces collected here at least two dozen times, and they get funnier with every reading. My essential ‘desert island’ book.’

Recommended by David
‘Kempowski’s last, devastating novel is a stately, beautiful depiction of a world reduced to ruins. Unforgettable.’

Recommended by David
‘First published in 1995 Ascherson‘s Black Sea is one of the most compelling biographies of a region I’ve ever encountered. This 2015 edition has been revised to take account of the recent conflict in Ukraine.‘

Recommended by David
‘Ostensibly following Bolívar, but in fact following Humboldt, Michael Jacobs takes us from north to south along the world’s most varied mountain range. His descriptions of the landscapes and history are brilliant, but what makes the book unforgettable are the pen-portraits of the extraordinary characters he meets along the way.’

Recommended by David
‘Not just the best book ever written about falconry, The Goshawk is one of the best books ever written about anything. This new edition has a foreword by Helen Macdonald, author of the second best book ever written about falconry.’

Recommended by David
‘In this future classic of popular science Jan Zalasiewicz unpicks the science behind Blakes’s ‘World in a Grain of Sand’, and explains, clearly and beautifully, how a small and unremarkable stone can provide a key to the deep history of the planet Earth.’